Beyond Carousel (11 page)

The taxi rank was static and empty. I jogged past the cars and back into the foyer where I had meant to be waiting. There was nobody in there. I looked around for signs that Taylor and Lizzy had been back. Everything
seemed the same. My backpack on the floor. The empty bottle of water beside it. A heaviness was already growing in my chest when I saw the note.

It was central on the help desk. A faded yellow post-it that should have said something like
Cereal
or
Pilates
. Instead –
Where are you Nox? I have to go back out there. T
.

I read it once and turned away.

Taylor hadn't found them. She had come back for help, but I wasn't around. Now both of the Finns were gone.

I dashed back outside and down onto the grassy embankment at the front of the building. It was wide and barren. I called out for Taylor, then Lizzy, then Chess. My voice sounded loud and shrill, but somehow disconnected from reality. The grounds and suburbs swallowed it easily and offered nothing in return. I passed the Pink billboard and kept on until I reached the highway and found the lonely frames of our abandoned bikes. They were there where we had left them. Where Taylor and Lizzy had bickered before I led us blindly towards the casino. I looked around and yelled some more, then felt dizzy and got a bizzaro flash of Luke Skywalker dangling alone from the edge of Cloud City.

It hit me then. Taylor and Lizzy were gone.

Back in the foyer I sat on the floor and cried noiselessly. Month upon month of balled-up emotion finally reached a precipice, then crashed down with
numbing force. The taxi. Stuart. Peter. The gnomes. Rachel. Rocky. The dome. The writing. My family. Their house. The fires. Tommy. And now, Taylor and Lizzy. The weight of it all felt like it might crush me then and there.

For a long time I lay foetal beside my backpack. Getting up and going on felt like something I might do in another world or life, but not this one. Eventually I reached over to the backpack and pulled out the contents. I looked past the clothes and shoes until I found my iPod. It still had a whisker of charge. I put in the earphones and played the Taylor & Lizzy album.

At the end of this I sat up, then stood and moved back to Taylor's note. I found a pen and wrote beneath it.
I'm upstairs. Will check in here every day at 7 and 7 until you're back. Nox.
Then I gathered my things and made my way back up to the penthouses.

The following day Rachel woke me up to run through the hefty list of conditions to staying on her penthouse level. The backup generators that kept the top floor powered during a blackout had run out of diesel some time ago. However, Rachel had an undisclosed store of diesel that she used to top them up. She didn't tell me where this was nor how much she had, just that it would run out quick if I started screwing around. She only used power for four hours a day. Once when she got up in the morning – which, for Rachel, was almost midday – and once at night. This routine was designed to eke out the diesel and also to keep her fridges cool. When the power kicked in she ran them at full blast for the two hours. They would frost over, chilling the hell out of everything inside, before cutting out and slowly thawing until the next blast.

The toilets still drained, but had to be flushed manually with a bucket. For water Rachel carted up fifteen-litre bottles of artisanal drinking water from a
storeroom on the lower levels. With this she bathed, flushed toilets, washed clothes and made ice for her rum-and-Cokes. If I wanted to do the same I would have to cart it up myself.

Rachel was less forthcoming about her food stores. There were obviously mini-bars full of snacks and drinks all over the place. And Rachel directed me to a kitchen a few levels down where she said I might find some stuff. But I had a feeling that there was somewhere else she wasn't letting me in on. I guess I couldn't really blame her.

Otherwise she told me to keep my noise down and curtains drawn at night. Rachel wasn't stupid. The penthouse level was visible to most of Perth. Lighting it up at night would be a welcome sign to the rest of the city. Loots, Artists or otherwise, Rachel wasn't keen on visitors.

That was about it. A list of rules was as close to an invitation as you got from Rachel, and I took it gratefully. The weeks on the road had left me thin and sickly. I boiled kettles for a bath in my room. By the time I rose out of it the water had turned deep brown with dirt, smoke and who knows what else. I wrapped myself in a bathrobe and trudged downstairs to the kitchen Rachel had suggested. I brought back cans of tuna and asparagus and ate them with water crackers. At the first hint of night I drew the curtains and watched the city lightshow sneaking in through gaps to bounce around my giant bedroom. But mostly I slept. And I dreamt.

Of Taylor and Lizzy in some beautiful city warehouse, where artists, press and PAs flitted about them as they chatted about their album and all they had endured to bring it to fruition. Talk of moving on and future projects. Nothing about the young guy they had spent the last two years with.

I dreamt of taking my family to see my new girlfriend Molly's band play. The four of us standing up the back of a dingy pub like awkward second cousins. Mum and Dad's concern as Molly avoided us at the end of their set. Danni pretending not to notice and feigning hunger so that we could leave and she could shield me from further embarrassment.

I dreamt of being back in Carousel. Sheltered by its comfort and familiarity. An old man now. With giant plants and notepad after notepad full of ramblings. Settling down to write some more when abruptly the doors opened and hundreds of shoppers converged on my settlement.

The dreaming was intense and draining, but waking was far worse. I had been fastened to the Finns for so long that being alone felt foreign and disorientating. Before Carousel I was a borderline loner and happy to keep it that way. Now it suddenly felt like I had full-blown separation anxiety.

I set alarms on the barman's watch and kept up my promise to check the foyer twice daily. It was a long walk down and an even tougher one back up. I charged my
walkie-talkie and took to scanning the channels while I waited. Outside, the smoke had cleared from the city for as far as I could see, but still the Finns didn't come. Again I searched the casino grounds. But Burswood was quiet and deserted. Just how Rachel liked it.

On my fourth day in the suites Rachel banged on my door and told me to come over that night for a barbeque. She left before I could answer but I was lonely as hell and all out of tuna, so it was a pretty good offer.

After my seven pm visit to the foyer I took another bath and dressed myself in a tacky casino club shirt and a pair of shorts I had found in somebody's luggage. I left my suite, then stopped as I realised I didn't have anything to bring with me. Do people still bring stuff to barbeques after the apocalypse? It was the type of question Lizzy and I could normally bullshit about for hours. But now I was alone and lingering weirdly in the hall. I returned to my room and took a bottle of sav blanc from the fridge. I felt stupid but thought whatever.

Rachel didn't answer the door so eventually I just let myself in. She was out on the balcony and held her drink up slightly in greeting when she saw me by the door. I made my way over.

Rachel's pride in her penthouse was obvious. The space was giant but clean and dust-free. She had brought up an array of plastic plants from other floors and polished the leaves back to a high gloss. They stood in
jungle-like clusters above lounges and rugs. There was a framed picture of Pink in one of the TV areas that looked like a recent addition. Out on the balcony was an exercise area with a bunch of fluorescent aerobic equipment and a stereo. There were also lounges, spa baths, a fully stocked bar and, in the corner, a giant gourmet barbeque with actual seafood sizzling on top. The smell of it made me dizzy with hunger.

This wasn't somewhere flash Rachel was crashing before moving onto the next place. This was her home now.

‘Do you want to drink that?' asked Rachel from the hotplate.

‘Not really,' I replied, looking at the wine.

‘There's beer in the bar,' said Rachel.

‘Cool. Thanks,' I replied.

I put the wine aside and took a beer from one of the many fridges in the outdoor bar. It was cold and sharp and tasted amazing. I shuffled back over and stood awkwardly by the barbeque.

‘Is this fish from the kitchen downstairs?' I asked.

Rachel shook her head and looked at me cagily.

‘You guys didn't take any food with you when you left Carousel?' she asked.

‘No. We left kind of suddenly,' I replied.

‘Is that skater kid still stuck in there?' she asked.

I nodded and took another swig. My eyes filled with fizz.

‘He died last year,' I replied.

Rachel looked at me.

‘Fucking shithole place,' she said.

I nodded and stared silently at the fish. Rachel took a long pull on her rum-and-Coke.

‘How long have you been living here?' I asked.

‘Ten months,' she replied. ‘Best room in the city.'

Rachel looked at me, fishing for an argument.

‘Did you meet many people on the way here?' I asked.

‘Enough,' she said.

‘Were they all Artists?' I asked.

Rachel shrugged. ‘Probably. They were all pretty useless,' she replied.

She flipped the fish. It was charred to high hell and getting worse by the second.

‘Plates behind the bar,' she said.

‘Sorry?' I asked.

‘To eat off, Nox. Go get us a couple,' replied Rachel.

I hesitated for a moment, surprised that she actually remembered my name.

‘Right. Sure,' I said.

Under the bar I found a thinning stockpile of plastic dinnerware. I took enough for the two of us and made up one of the tables.

As the sun finally dropped, Rachel and I sat for an awkward, but kind of lovely, barbeque dinner. It reminded me of Sunday lunch at my aunty Linda's, with her drab salads and droning chitchat. Danni and
I used to hate those visits. Dad too, probably. But lately I would kill for that type of thing. To be stuck talking crap with my family on the weekend, cocooned deep down in sleepy suburbia, daydreaming of something big happening one day.

Few things have tasted better to me than Rachel's overcooked fish and weird gherkin and sweet corn salad. I stuffed my skinny, anaemic body with protein and buzzed off icy bottles of imported beer. Rachel tipped, inevitably, into slushy territory and told me some more about her kids, Kelly and Chad, and her ex, Steve. It seemed as though her bitterness towards Steve had faded. She still thought he was a ‘useless loser' but she said this with a flicker of nostalgia and sounded proud of his ability to do nothing at his job with the council, yet still get paid.

The sun set and I realised that Rachel had all of the tables positioned to face the city lightshow. We talked throughout the display but twice I caught her gaze wandering up to the lights as if they were the nightly news or something. When they finished we were basically in darkness. Rachel disappeared inside while I stared across at the blocky and pensive city. Giant grey towers etched out of the dark. I traced their shapes and tried to remember which was which.

Rachel returned with a bucket of Ferrero Rocher. I had been gorging on chocolate for days but didn't let on. Instead I thanked her and forced down a couple more.

It was quiet but for a soft sea breeze and the hum of insects by the river.

‘How long are you staying for?' asked Rachel.

‘I guess until Taylor and Lizzy come back,' I replied.

‘What if they don't?' she asked.

I shivered and didn't answer.

‘What are your plans?' I asked, changing the subject.

‘Plans?' cackled Rachel. ‘Nothing. Live here. Relax. That Curator can fuck himself.'

I sat up.

‘You've heard about the Curator?' I asked.

‘Who hasn't,' replied Rachel.

‘Have you seen him anywhere?' I asked.

‘Ha,' she snorted. ‘He wouldn't want to run into me.'

I smiled, but Rachel looked deadly serious. Fair enough, I thought. Here she was, no kids, no ex. Alone in the world but for the odd encounter with some Artist she probably couldn't stand. Why should she feel anything but animosity towards the Curator. Why should anyone.

I stayed there late, drinking and bitching and trying my best to offer some common-people solidarity as Rachel and I hovered between decadence and poverty in the post-apocalyptic wonderland that was Perth.

I kept up my visits to the foyer as the summer meandered on. In the mornings I dressed in exercise gear and used my time waiting there to stretch, before heading back up to work out in a gym on level five. At night I took down a beer and a magazine and hung around until one or the other was finished. The same thing, day after day. My note still central on the desk. The colour fading and the corners curling up.

My routine ignored a reality that I wasn't yet ready to face. With each day that passed it became less and less likely that Taylor and Lizzy would return. I ran through different trajectories of events in my mind. The start made sense to me: Chess is spooked by the alarms and runs. Lizzy chases after him, her calls are lost in the wailing. They become disorientated, can't hear us yelling after them and take shelter. Taylor fails to find them and returns to discover the foyer is empty. She looks for me. She waits. She feels a deep guilt for the loss of her twin. She has to leave.

But then what? She finds Lizzy and Chess. They come back and see my note. She doesn't find Lizzy and Chess. She comes back and sees my note. Lizzy and Chess surface without her. They head to the casino and find my note. In none of my projections was I left alone in the casino with Rachel. When I lingered on this thought I felt great rumbles of emotion. Guilt. Anger. Grief. A vast and profound loneliness. Things that were dark and enveloping.